Gen. 7 Intro: Meet Bella!

Oops. It was dark outside. I was probably going to be in trouble when I got home. Luckily, I had the whole bike ride home to think about a good excuse. I mean, I was at the library. And I did look at some books while I was there. I could just tell Mom that I was working on a school report. She doesn't have to know I went there waiting for my aunt.

My Aunt Gypsy is pretty much my favorite person ever. She's funny, and likes to play and have fun. Not like my boring parents. And boy, does she have a cool job. I don't know what it is, but I think she is probably a spy, or a bank robber or something. She tells me about some of the crazy people she works with, but she never tells me names, and when I ask her what it is she does, she always says, "For your own good, kid, I'm not telling." But, she says when I'm finally a teenager, she'll let me in on what it is she does, and she might even let me join her! So exciting! 

I wish I could live with Aunt Gypsy. But I know there's no way my parents would ever let me. They don't even like me spending any time with her. Oh well. My aunt and I dream up plans sometimes, about her and I living together, staying out all night, sleeping in the day, shopping and having fun. Maybe someday, it will happen.

I put my bike away and look inside the window before slowly opening the door. So far, no sign of mom. I know I won't make it up the stairs without drawing attention to myself, so I slip off to the laundry room and find a pair of pajamas to change into. Maybe seeing me in pajamas will make mom think I've been home longer than I have. I walk into the kitchen, and realize I missed dinner. I find some waffles in the fridge from this morning, and figure it will make as good of a dinner as any!

As I eat in silence, disappointment creeps in. Aunt Gypsy was supposed to meet me tonight at the library, and never showed up. That's the real reason I was home past curfew. If my mom and dad knew that was the reason I was there, and why I missed curfew, I'd be in big trouble. I was just going to have to pretend I did it on purpose, because I felt like it, and not mention my aunt's name. That was the only thing I didn't like about Aunt Gypsy. Sometimes she didn't keep her promises. But I knew it was only because of her work, she would never not show up for the heck of it. And someday, I'd know what her work was, and it wouldn't be a big deal. I'd forgive her. Again.

After I finished eating, I went ahead and went upstairs. I knew my mom would hear me. "Bella? is that you?"

I made sure I sounded cool. "Yep, it's me!"

I walked in her room. My dad was already snoring. It wasn't that late, it was just now closing in on my bedtime. But daddy seemed to always go to sleep so early on workdays. I guess his job wore him out. Compared to my friends at school, my parents were pretty old.

"Young lady, you missed dinner. Where were you?"
"Oh, yeah, sorry. I was at the library reading books for school." 

"Really?" She looked at me with that look that grownups give kids when they don't believe them..

"Yes Mom, I swear! I was! Call the librarian if you don't believe me!"

She just looked at me for a minute, probably deciding she really would call the librarian in the morning.

"Ok. Well, don't let it happen again. Maybe we need to get you a watch. You know the police don't let children wander around town this late."

"Oh, I was home before curfew,  Mom" I lied. I already ate dinner and everything, and see? I'm in my pajamas." 

She gave me another skeptical look, then sighed. "Oh, I don't have the energy to argue with you tonight. Let's just go to bed, ok?"

"Story?"

"Bella, it's bedtime. If you wanted a story, you should have been home in time to read before bed."

I smiled at her and patted the book setting on her nightstand, the one her and I had been reading together, while I made myself comfortable on her side of the bed. "Please, Mom? Just one chapter?"

Again, she sighed, but this time she smiled. "Oh alright. I suppose after your birthday tomorrow, you won't want me to read to you anymore anyways..."

"Yes!" I snuggled down in the covers. "Don't wake your dad" Mom whispered.

"Ha," I said in a lowered voice, "you know he'll sleep through anything."
"True, true..." Mom said, then opened up the book.

I could barely keep my eyes open once she finished the chapter, and she kissed me on the head and said "Now, scoot to bed missy, you still have school tomorrow."

"Night, Mom."

"Good night Bella... I love you."

I snuggled down into my bed, and drifted off to sleep while thinking of my teen birthday that was less than 24 hours away now. And plans of what I would do with my new found freedom as a teen.

"Happy Birthday to you!!!!"

Ugh. I tried to put a pillow over my head, but it didn't work.

"Happy Birthday to you...."

My mom was playing her guitar at top volume, and singing as loud as she could. Some alarm clock! I stomped out of bed and stood behind her.

"Happy Birthday, WAKE UP! Happy Birthday to you..."

"MOM! That's the most annoying way to wake anyone up ever!!!"

"Oh now, hon, I thought it was a sweet way to wake up my birthday girl." she said, while still strumming the birthday melody.

"No, no it's not! Now get out so I can get dressed!"

"Ok, ok, I'm going. Try to change out of that sour attitude too, while you're at it, it's your birthday for goodness sake!"

As I was staring into my drawer full of shirts looking for my clothes, I remembered they were downstairs in the laundry room. And while on my way to the laundry room I saw my backpack where I left it last night, and remembered that in all my "studies" at the library last night, I didn't do my homework! Eek!

Quickly before Mom or Dad came downstairs, I got out my notebook and started writing. Hopefully I could finish this before they noticed.

After quickly finishing it up and slipping my notebook back into my bag, I turned the corner to the laundry room in search of my clothes, and WHAP!

"Haha! I got you! Happy Birthday!" Apparently my dad was waiting around the corner for me with a pillow.

"What was that for!?"

"Well, a birthday spanking... but a little more fair. Here, arm yourself!"
He kicked a pillow to me but as I bent down to pick it up, he whapped me on the head again!

"Hey, not fair!" I screeched as I smacked him as hard as I could in the behind with my pillow.

He and I traded blows while screeching, yelling, and laughing all over the laundry room.

Finally, when he had to stop to catch his breath, I asked, "Truce?"

"Yeah, truce. I think you've been properly honored on your birthday."

Just then  I heard Mom yell, "JJ! Bella! Hurry and eat breakfast before the bus comes!"

After a 'birthday' breakfast, which consisted of everyone telling me happy birthday and asking about what I wanted to do tonight,  the school bus honked and my brother and I were out the door.

I liked school ok. I didn't always get all my homework done, and occasionally I caused a little trouble on field trips, but all in all, I was an ok student. I can't say I really had friends at school, but I didn't have any enemies, so that was something. Truthfully, my friends were my brother, and my Aunt. And I was ok with that.

Of course, now that my brother was a teen, he and I didn't have as much fun as we used to. He didn't like going over to Aunt Gypsy's anymore, and I discovered if I did and he knew, he'd tell Mom and Dad on me, so I stopped telling him.

"Why are you staring at me... I'm working here."
"Let's go do something fun. Let's swim or play catch or something!"

"Can't, Bella, this report is due tomorrow. And I still have history questions to answer."

"UGH. You are so boring."

"Hey, I'm doing this so I'm free to have fun at your party tonight, remember?"

"I don't want a party. I just want Aunt Gypsy to come over and hang out, that's all."

"Oh, that's right. Nice job freaking mom and dad out when you asked for that at breakfast."
"Hey, it's my birthday."

"....."

"Well, I can see you're ignoring me now, so I'll go."
"..."

"Happy birthday to me, I guess. I sighed as I left the room. See what I mean? And I'm sure after homework, he'd start in on a game of chess, and I probably wouldn't see him until my aging up.

After calling my Aunt Gypsy just to make sure she was really coming over, I occupied myself in my room until I heard the doorbell ring. Yes! Aunt Gypsy!

I ran to the living room, only to see some dorky guy my brother had invited over. Some guy he played chess with, I'm sure.

Disappointed, I planted myself on the front porch to wait for my Aunt's arrival. And to daydream about how exciting it will be to finally be a teenager!

*buckey's notes*- Yay! Generation 7 is underway! I'm having a hard time deciding whether to move them to a new town (Bridgeport) or keep them in Barnacle Bay for this last generation. I have a storyline for them to move, but I can abandon that if they should stay. So, I'm going to ask you, dear readers! What do you think? Would you like to see them move after Bella ages to teen, or should we finish up the Wishacy right here in BB? I'll keep up a vote on the homepage for a while and you can weigh in!

Gen. 6 Chapter 9: What Lies Ahead...

Bella and JJ both seemed to cope with their grandmother's death extremely well. JJ would admit to being sad sometimes, but he recovered quickly, and had his friends at school and his new found love of chess to keep him busy. Bella on the other hand, never mentioned it at all, and when I asked her about her grandmother, and if she wanted to talk about what happened, she'd just shrug and say, "I didn't really know her." and walk off to her room. She was pretty young, so it could be that she was so young it didn't really affect her.

She definitely took more of an interest in her Aunt Gypsy. Well, both children did ask to spend time with her right after Royal died, and I assumed they didn't want her to be lonely. 

 After a while, JJ stopped going over there, but Bella was constantly asking to see her, and to call her on the phone.

Jazz took his mother's death pretty hard, but as we have a family to run and jobs to attend to, our everyday life helped us not dwell on too much sadness and move on. Jazz was concerned for Bella's new interest in his sister, Gypsy because although he thought it was sweet that she wanted to keep in touch with her since their grandma passed, he knew that his sister was sometimes not the best influence for the kids. She had a mean streak, and could be down right Evil sometimes.

Both J and Bella being school-aged now meant they had a little more freedom to go places after school. They rode their bikes all over the place, which we were okay with as long as it was on our street. Their favorite spot was the park next door. 

However, there was one particular day that I thought they were at the park, but come to find out they went to their Aunt Gypsy's house, once again, and without permission. 

When Gypsy called to tell me the kids were there I tried to hide my annoyance, then told Jazz it was time he had a talk with the kids about spending so much time with their Aunt.

"Listen, Bella honey, I know you care about your Aunt a lot, but I just don't think you should be spending as much time over there as you have been. Eating cake for dinner, and playing on the water slide instead of doing your homework isn't a good choice."

"But, why? That's not fair! We're just having fun. I like Aunt Gypsy."
*sigh* "I know it's hard to understand-"
 "But Daddy, she likes us coming to visit. I don't have any other cousins, or grandparents that like spending time with me. She's the only family that wants to know us!"

Bella still had a way of wrapping her Daddy around her little finger, and knew just what to say to get to him when she wanted her way. Although most of my siblings were still here in Barnacle Bay, we all went our own ways after growing up. I only saw my twin sister, Ginger once in a blue moon. None of them had any kids, so there wasn't really a lot of common ground with them anymore. She did have a point, Gypsy did love our kids. How could we argue with that?

Did I mention that Bella decided shortly after her birthday that she was a vegetarian now? We did our best to support her in that, but it did make meal planning a bit of a challenge. If I did happen to make something with meat in it, she'd turn up her nose, and help herself to whatever she thought was a more appropriate meal. Oh, our Bella...

As for my work, most of it was taking place at night. It wasn't that I chose that, I missed the evenings with my kids, but to be honest, I had more and more of a desire to be around people, and one of my favorite things about my job was meeting all the of the people that I did. It seemed that nowadays, more and more of my clients were becoming my friends.

To be right honest, one of the reasons I didn't feel guilty about leaving the kids at night was I knew most of their evening was taken up with homework anyways, and during the afternoons they played and enjoyed their own activities. They were becoming more and more independent with each passing day.

One of J's new hobbies: bugs. He began chasing and catching them, and even brought one home. Glowy was his very own pet, and he loved that disgusting thing. Bleh!

My latest case involved DNA samples to find a thief, and the best way to collect those was when everyone was sleeping.

So, Jazz had bedtime duty. He loved it. No matter how tired he was, he would read each kid a story before they drifted off to sleep.

It didn't take long for J to outgrow those precious bedtime rituals though. He was edging closer and closer to teen with every passing minute. If his father teased him or tried to show him affection in any way, J's response was always, "Dad, please! You're embarrassing me!" 

As J's teen birthday approached, my work schedule started shifting, and I didn't take as many cases. I hadn't really considered retirement, but I also was getting older. I could feel it when my knees creaked and my back ached when I walked. I knew it was time to start slowing down the work pace a bit. Instead, I socialized more, and the nice thing was, because of my job, I knew pretty much the whole town. There was always someone to chat with on the phone, computer, or visit for lunch dates or whatever.

J's birthday came without much pomp and circumstance. He insisted that he didn't want a party, so we honored his request. As a matter of fact, he spent his birthday alone, in his room, playing chess. It was what he ate, slept and breathed.

Happy Birthday JJ!
And, his announcement that night after his transformation didn't really surprise us, he wanted to spend his life working to become a Chess Legend. He wanted to start challenging people, and working his way up the competition ladder. That was our Friendly, Genius, Eccentric little boy that we loved!

That night, while practicing for an upcoming speech in the mirror, I stopped for a minute and took a good hard look at myself. 

There were a lot more age lines on that face that looked back at me than I remembered. But I couldn't help but be proud of each of those little lines. I thought back to all the memories that had put each one there.... starting my own business, living with the love of my life,  our wonderful vacation to France, the day he proposed to me, our beautiful wedding on the beach, the adventure of motherhood, all of my escapades with my Private Eye career.... I realized I had lived the exact kind of life that I had always wanted. I had my music to sooth my soul, as many friends as a gal could ask for, and a beautiful family. 

I asked myself, what's the next adventure? And for the longest time I couldn't think of a single thing I wanted to do that I hadn't already done....

Then I smiled. I knew what one thing I had left to do. Enjoy watching my kids find their own adventures. That was what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing, with my husband's hand in mine....

*buckey's notes*- Wow. The end of Juniper's generation! That talking in the mirror bit at the end was how she completed her LTW, to master the Charisma and Guitar skills. And now, here we are, at the very last generation! 
Bella will take over after this. She's a child, so this will be the first generation to take over as a child! And with her randomized traits, and the addition of Seasons and University Life to my game, I think this last generation is going to be an exciting one!
By the way, if you find yourself playing University Life and think there needs to be some new rules to include on the Official Rules page, please step on over to the Sims 3 Forum Wishacy page, comment, or email me, and we'll work on getting those rules up on the post. Thanks everyone!